As the end of 2025 approaches, retirement plan sponsors should promptly consider several important potential tasks. Examples include the following: The failure to comply with most of those requirements can be addressed under the IRS’s formal correction programs for retirement plans.
On November 13, via Notice 2025-67, the IRS announced the effect of cost-of-living adjustments on certain 2026 dollar limits for various retirement plans (e.g., 401(k), 403(b), and 457(b) plans). Several limits will increase for 2026 because of inflation, as the increase in the cost-of-living index met statutory thresholds that triggered their adjustment for 2026. Here […]
On September 23, the Department of Labor (the “DOL”) published Advisory Opinion 2025-04A (the “Opinion”). The Opinion addresses whether lifetime income products can be part of a defined contribution retirement plan’s qualified default investment alternative (“QDIA”). As background, when a participant makes plan contributions but fails to elect how those contributions will be invested, the […]
As discussed in the February 2025 edition of The Speed Reader, on January 10, 2025 the IRS published proposed regulations regarding certain provisions in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (“SECURE 2.0”). Under one of those provisions, catch-up contributions made by certain participants must be made as Roth contributions (the Roth catch-up requirement). In addition, […]
On July 24, the DOL published a blog article titled “How self-audits help build a culture of compliance and trust.” The article announces the DOL’s launch of its “expanded self-audit compliance assistance initiative.” With respect to employee benefit plans, the article states that self-audits “help the regulated community proactively assess and improve compliance with the […]
Given the continuing wave of ERISA litigation, this article has become a mainstay of The Speed Reader. A sample of recent cases is provided below. The most common type of ERISA case involves retirement plan participants’ allegations that plan fiduciaries caused participants to pay excessive recordkeeping and investment fees and included one or more poorly-performing […]
Given the continuing wave of ERISA litigation, this article has become a mainstay of The Speed Reader. A sample of recent cases is provided below. The most common type of ERISA case involves retirement plan participants’ allegations that plan fiduciaries caused participants to pay excessive recordkeeping and investment fees and included one or more poorly-performing […]
On July 4, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill (the “Bill”), in all its roughly 900 pages of star-spangled glory. The Bill covers a wide array of areas (e.g., health care, national defense, and energy policies), but it also includes employee benefits provisions. Those provisions address topics such as health savings […]
As discussed in the April 2022 edition of The Speed Reader, in March of 2022 the Department of Labor (the “DOL”) published its first guidance on including cryptocurrencies in a 401(k) plan’s investment lineup. That guidance directed plan fiduciaries to exercise “extreme care before they consider adding a cryptocurrency option to a 401(k) plan’s investment […]
ERISA Litigation Update: Given the continuing wave of ERISA litigation, this article has become a mainstay of The Speed Reader. A sample of recent cases is provided below. The most common type of ERISA case involves retirement plan participants’ allegations that plan fiduciaries caused participants to pay excessive recordkeeping and investment fees and included one […]